Summer is made for outdoor play

Summer is made for outdoor play

Summer, with all its warm weather, sunshine, and fresh air, is ideal for outdoor play. After all, it's often quite difficult to keep little ones inside during this time of the year. You may therefore be tempted to set crafts, board games, and storybooks aside. After all, bicycles and sandboxes win the battle hands down. However, it is also possible to reverse roles and bring crafts and games outside. Here are a few tricks that will help you take advantage of the nice weather while optimizing children's language development.

Setting up your yard

• Prepare a special shady corner, under a tree or umbrellas. If you wish, you may also build a special house or cabin with your group using blankets.
• Help children get comfortable by setting chairs, cushions, mats, and pillows here and there.
• Offer a wide range of material such as board games, crafts, crayons, and paper to keep children busy.

A variety of activitie

• All indoor activities can also be presented outside. Just pick one!
• Listen to the sounds that are present when you're outside and name them (cars, birds, other animals, etc.).
• Organize illustrated bicycle races. Glue pictures on a wall or fence at one end of your yard. Children pedal across the yard, select an illustration, bring it back to you, and name the item.
• Set up obstacle courses using the items present in your yard. Take advantage of this activity to help children practice spatial concepts (under the slide, inside the bucket, next to the sandbox, etc.).
• Organize a treasure hunt in your sandbox. Hide various objects and encourage children to search for them. Name the items with your group and sort them by category (animals, cars, shapes, colors, etc.).
• Stick illustrations on the bottom of your kiddie pool. Provide diving masks and encourage children to use them to observe the illustrations. Invite them to name what they see.
• Display pictures of numbers or any other category on a fence or wall. Have children take turns throwing a ball on the pictures and naming whatever the ball touches.
• Pick flowers and sort them by color.
• To work on the concept of numbers, ask children to collect a certain number of pebbles or rocks.
• Take long walks and name the objects you see, talk about things that are present in your neighbourhood, the sounds you hear, etc.

Have a wonderful summer!

Maude Dubé
Special education teacher

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